Why not make Moble Suits?

First one looks more stable.

But both models will be useless when one of their legs get blown off.

There is no scale on these pictures, and especially the first one could be as small as 50cm standing height (assuming the barrel on the back belongs to a PDW/SMG type weapon), while a realistic approach with an MG of 7.62 or higher class would still enable it to be of less than 1.5m standing height.

Northwolf,

>>
Just one fix to your estimates an infantry can march ~50Km/24hrs cross country and elite units can do about 65km, while carrying around 40kg of gear (this is based on my own experience in FRDF recon)
>>

Fair enough but are they worth anything when they get there? And can they turn around and come straight back home to do it again the next day as a function of continual patrols into and out of a contested area? A machine can.

IMO, the true value of speed in fielded maneuver or infantry operations is that, /once you've established trailing contact/ it lets you dictate where the actual engagement is going to happen. With mechanized or airborne envelopement race-ahead.

If an Afghan Dushman run-walks at 7mph between cache`s and the Beanies behind him are stuck at 3-4mph, huffing and puffing at altitude in the burning heat or frozen cold, they are /never/ going to overtake, let alone pass him. Because he knows his home and hearth support awaits him on the other side of a border. And they know they are only getting deeper and deeper into Indian Country with the certainty of also having to walk back. Thus, his only reason for waiting on them to make good whatever separation they are dropped at on his heels is if he feels they are so deep that he can better his reputation by taking a few scalps under the eyes of his friends and neighbors direct witnessing.

Now, you put your camping gear into a Gator and maybe you can hoof it along at 8-10mph but it is /still/ going to be an awful long catchup. Particularly when the Gator is itself good for 20-25mph on it's own.

Which is where you have to start asking principled questions:

1. Do I want to drive down a goat trail in a 5ft wide golf cart. Or even /send it alone/ (R-Gator) if my enemy knows that that is the only way through for a dozen miles in any direction? Can I design something which can leap from cliff to clifftop to clifftop as an alternative to begging the small ambush? If I cannot create the jointed dexterity, what combination of armor and sheer speed will let me overtake the enemy AND survive his fires when I plant myself in his crosshairs, predictably?
2. If I want to intercept the enemy ahead of their last known location and the terrain channelizes them to a give set number of (wheeled) passable routes, how many K2's do I need to choke them all and how heavy do I want to qualify the lifter that takes them? Right now, you need a Chinook or better to ro-ro a Gator from. If you designed a K2 that could, if not scale hills then at least /clamber aboard/ an H-60 series platform, you might double or triple the number of routes rates of insert/extracts being done _remote_ from any likely ambush on both pursuit vehicle and delivery platform. i.e. establish loose contact and then bring the rest of the K2's into the party to gain numeric overmatch as with any other force (assuming you can FARP in the field).
3. How much /crap/ is that man carrying that a K2 does not need to? As a function of tradeable armor, systems and ammunition weight vs. loping-cruise speed. We all know that the M16 and indeed 5.56 in general is worthless in a typical grunts hands much over 250m. Yet the fact is the winds and the gradient slopes in SWA are making even SOF level shooters strain to hit targets outside 300m in an engagement zone where you are often shooting ridge to ridge across some pretty big sky spaces (800-1,000 yards or more). Do you want to charge into a close fight at 40-50mph (terrain dictated) average closure with 800rds of 9-10mm SMG type weapon? Or do you want to hold back and just maintain the bare minimum LOS so that you can mount an sniper or SPR equivalent (7.62 to 25mm) weapon with maybe 50-150rds while maintaining a faster 50-70mph pursuit curve that lets K2 loop around the threat to take (digital terrain map optimized LOS ranges as a killing field optimized sniping point) the 'perfect shot'?

This 'how do we Darwinistically optimize the baseline configuration of a K2' is the kind of discussion we need to be asking. To hell with getting bogged down in some kind of 'would they work or not' comparison with man.

Because, against pathetic humans. ANYTHING works. At least once. The question then being whether you are decisive and reliable (automotive mechanics if nothing else) to suppress the learning curve of the opfor with zero storytellers.

>>
But i like the idea, especially if the "kitty" is in full contact with artillery/mortar/CAS elements and a computerized "HQ" is given full intel from kittys to use the support in an optimal way.
>>

'Optimal Intel' is nothing more or less than piggybacking on civillian broadband telecoms to me (like any other picture-in-cellphone). Because while I expect to lose a few in any action on any given day, the fact remains that, particularly in guerilla MOUT, you are looking more for positive ID than decisive engagement.

Combine a biometric tagged 'face of my killer' with a national database of 'drivers licenses' (no drivers license= instant execution or heavy jail time. False residency and work registration = instant dispossession of goods and heavy jail time when we catch you) and you can _shut down_ an IED attack MO wherein the majority of the bombers are within a 150-300m standoff, looking for a convoy to enter the killzone so that they can activate the IR diode fuzing.

It is in these areas where I want my foot-mobile robotic infantry to be able to /keep up with/ a conventionally mechanized force as a security screen and general overwatch unit that is cheaper and more readily able to mount weapons than (say) an armed UAV.

While, if kitty is acting as firepower magnifier for a human infantry unit doing the 'shaking hands and showing faces' mission down some alleyway, then IT may well be all the artillery and C2 that they can bring to bear in sufficient rapidity and low-collateral safety to survive.

Here, a simple SMG class weapon, IF it has a lot of rounds, would let the K2 act like a 'BAR Man' (Squad Automatic) with the armor to be fearless when half a building is killsac blown up behind you and the insurgents start cockroaching out of the rubble.

It certainly has a better chance maintaining a higher command link than a conventional radioman if only because it's 360`visual sensors and digital modem bridge can transfer image relays as an initial contact report in milliseconds. While all the meatsacks are still pulling their sorry selves together and trying to fire back.

And there is no reason why it could not mount a smoke generator or a multipurpose M203/Knee Mortar (40-60mm anyway) system to provide low-arcing parabolic fires which don't have to worry about clearing the tenement on either side.

i.e. In the conventional warfare condition, these units would act as SOF dunebuggy patrols in maintaining a fluid pursuit and harrassment/observation of principle enemy combat elements.

In a UCW 'soft sieved border' fight, it acts as a kind of ultramobile pursuit force and perhaps in-place assassin predator.

In a MOUT fight against rebels, it _IS_ the command element, support fires and ultimately backup squad leader. Because, anymore, you cannot bring even 89-105mm light gun support into a city without raising all kinds of hackles. And nobody is going to get to the in-danger-of-overrun threated patrol before the threat either takes them or fades back into the streaming sheep.

CONCLUSION:
In the end, I think that is the ultimate operating psychology by which robotic weapons systems are in danger of 'never being good enough'. In that, if you make them able to accomplish a similar range of missions to that which man can do, you also align too many forces against them among established (turfwar) roles and missions separated platforms.

BUT....(C22: It's the best there is...;-)

If you strictly limit the system to functioning ONLY in role-X then, whatever that mission arena is, it will /seem/ like you can do without the robot if it's cost is more than what you gain back from all the other toys you could buy in a sum of all the warfighter operating paradigms which are /not/ threatened.

Again. I don't think we know enough to make the case either way. And until we design /something/ to get the basics of locomotion, obstacle avoidance and design operating environment (urban = stairs and doors as a basic sizing limit for instance) 'solved' for at a basic animal level of ontologic integration with the social 'customs' of combat, we will never be able to mount the mission systems (guns and sensors and comms) to do the weapons _system_ level networking with other platforms.

And it is in that networking (supplantitively better than you, non-competitive with you, complimentary to you) that most new prototypes eventually wedge themselves an expanded niche by also enhancing or replacing the legacy units already in place.

This time, the legacy is man.


KPl.

DB,

>>
So ch1446, its better to make a walking four legged tank than a two leg tank or mech?
>>

Yes and no.

The reality being that no walking unit has 'runflat' capability or indeed any other type of fail-operative mode relative to major injury to one of it's limbs. About the best you can do is reduce the number of failure -possible- system elements and then exceed specs based on weight and cost savings in the structural load bearing and armor/locomotive power margins.

Still, the basics of efficiency itself come down to locomotive morphism and it's resultant effect on stride vs. ground clearance and CG efficiencies.

The crocodile (four legged) system will alway 'waddle' (side to side) because it's hips are splayed wide and unlike a crab it cannot lock down a limb while advancing another to literally pull itself (straight) forward but rather must 'throw', completely, one side into motion and then the other. Supporting all your weight through a joint which must alternately swivel laterally around it's attach point while retaining enough freedom of motion to also lift vertically the lead leg axes 'knee above back' over obstacles to it's low belly put's immense mmense stress on the joint and leaves little room for repetitive motion to recover energy from each (short) stride.

Now, imagine a system which looks something like those statues of Chinese Lions when it sits. And acts something like a giant slinky in it's running motion. In that the assymetrically long forelimbs _always_ raise the chest above the immediate foreground obstacle. And the back legs are less 'walking' than pushing. In a thrust-from-compression locked back end. And the spinal column, like a cheetah's, is acting as the shockabsorber and energy recovery 'battery' to recock (and sweep thru) the forelegs while the backones literally retract (Hydropneumatic cylinders in K2's case), 'catch up' as the rear hips compress forward and then touch down before extending again.

www.animalpicturesarchive.com...
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In this, I'm afraid I made my own mistake because genus canine 'lopes' (alternating foot falls on the fore and aft, left and right). While genus feline /bounds/.

The difference being that a wolf's run is able to eat up distance in a very efficent manner because seldom are more than 3 paws off the ground (1-2 are always pushing). But a puma can cover yards more individual stride length in what amounts to a continuous long jump after long jump of bunch-and-explode motion.

As to the the bipedal option, the question becomes kinematic stability of the chassis vs. length of femur. In this, I tend to prefer the Ostrich motif more than the strictly anthropomorphic one because it lets me put a tall, stable, masted sensor/weapons suite well up over the local horizon. While getting a 6-8 foot running step by resting the bodymass atop as much as inbetween the running legs. Because the majority of the birds weight is still sitting under it's rump it can have a fair amount of stride energy kinetically pushing it off it's CG post (even with both legs off the ground). But, while running, the 'lift and kick' articulation axis still has enough throw-forward displacement area to so that the bodies weight is coming down through the breastbone to a point on the ground where the toes and heels of the lead leg can 'dig in' to stop a forward fall so that the creature is able to manage what amounts to a two-legged canter without losing propulsive efficiency.

OTOH, the bird has it's own share of problems as soon as it hits elevated and/or broken terrain. Because, climbing, it has to to rest all of it's weight on one side while raising more and more of it's nonsupporting legweight higher and higher off the ground. Which puts /immense/ stresses on the loaded ankle and poses problems of scraping as the thrust forward foot comes down with it's knee behind it's ankle and so effectively doesn't have a columnar (upright) posture to push the entire body upwards. But rather must must 'rest and lever against' what you and I would call a calf muscle. Going downhill is even worse because you you have to cock the head and neck back to conserve mass-momentum over the CG while your chest and belly literally want to 'fall off the edge' of any vertical acceleration descending an obstacle face. Which is why a Raptor could never climb stairs (though it might leap down if it was willing to smash it's head on the overhang) or open doors properly.

Humans can't running-prance (butt low, legs forward) like an ostrich because our our pelvis' push our chests too far forward and our shins are too short for the amount of height than our kneecaps will allow us to kick thru. Hence we literally 'lean into' our running direction without a lot of margin between turning a vertical 'stamping' (columnar aligned walking) stance into efficient horizontal force without falling on our faces. Visualize a sprinter at the starting blocks and now imagine using The Force or whatever to keep ourselves aligned at a 40-50` angle to the ground as we ran. The human topend of about 20-22mph could easily gain 10-15mph more, 'if only' gravity wasn't a factor. Yet, since we cannot effectively rest on our own momentum like an ostrich, we are crippled in the way we fight. Not only through a ridiculously tall target silouhette exposures. But also by an inability enter or leave the combat zone faster than an _enemy muzzlepoint_ can track us. Forget the bullet. Duck or outrun the barrel slew.

Comparitively, it is /vaguely/ possible that the giant 'pendulum pelvis' hanging between the biped mecha's hips could act as a gyroscopic bobweight (think tail), especially if it telescoped or rotated further backwards as speed built up. But then the question becomes how efficient any 'face forward' platform could possibly be as a system designed to fight from an upright position with it's arms bent at the elbows to support (human biased) rifles. When in fact they would be better off swept back and tucked (CG again) like a birds wings. Or pushed forward to keep the gun and what not out of the dirt while maintaining a _head level_ (eyes forward) level of situational awareness. It would be utterly impossible for the human form to twist it's hips from this posture to adjust aim or look angle and those massive dual shoulder attachments would have major side force and FOV penalties of their own as a function of cut-and-swivel foot positioning /inside/ their inertial moment causing a large lateral 'sway' to buildup.

To which my response is unequivocally 'don't solve a problem you don't need to add from the outset' by pretending that either an alligator or a human biomechanoid is every going to be optimized to a 40-60mph running efficiency.

Instead, take what we know of animal kinematics biology (motion analysis as a function of limb length and posture between at-rest, walking and running modes of locomotion) to find the tall ground clearance, long stride, good energy recovery, body form which IS efficient at these speeds and then cheat like mad to add the necessary behavioral modes (guns and armor and stair climbing etc.) with technology.

If you need the limbs to rotate and lift in a walking pace normally, then slide free a pin which enables a knee joint to operate on a fixed 'cartilage' spring system. While using (slow speed only) hip motors to undertake normal quadrupedalism more or less like a horse or dog. If you need to walk up stairs, raise the body on the sheer strength of metal-not-enamel bone vertebra and ligaments and splay the forelimbs out for balance and 'handrail' (wall, whatever) physical assist while adjusting the length of the trailing leg pistons for height clearance and lift over tread-height. If you need to fight, hunker down to minimize silouhette height and expose whatever muzzles or sensors are required from an earth-stable recoil absorption and smallest-frontal-area mode is necessary to bring _projectile_(= ranged) fires into play.

If, however, you need to RUN TWENTY MILES IN TWENTY MINUTES; squat down to a deep at-heel 'begging for a treat' posture. Release the hipmotor linkages to freerotate, lock the knees and PUSH OFF in a simple up-becomes-out motion that starts from an explosive release of the forelegs grasping. The rearlegs pushing back at an angle (reverse pelvis, 'normal' knees) and the spine extending forward like a giant piston.

In a stiff-but-explosive bound like a cheetah or a puma ungulating over the terrain.


KPl.


LINK-
Some Comparitive Biomech Analysis Of Various Body Forms.
www.rvc.ac.uk...

I have actually gotten the opportunity to view the follow up to UC Berkeley's BLEEK suit. Last week, I happened upon two grad students testing the latest version on the sidewalk besides Etchevery Hall (ME building). The new suit is electrically powered (old one used a gas lawnmower engine), with actuations only at the knees! This is possible because most of the load is concentrated on the knees, and other joints arn't stressed that much anyhow. Eliminating extraneous actuations increased flexibility, surviveability and efficiency. The operator strutted up and down the 10 degree grade of the sidewalk with a 75 Kilo weight on his back!

i say we build something like the marines in starcraft.u know they have the big armor suits but they aren't huge and the chaingun built into the arm of the suit. but that would also suck because like in the opening cut-scene if you run out of ammo your screwed. still it would be cool.

The guns arent built into the suits in SC, and we arent fighting aliens, yet.

my bad i thought they were. t's been awhile since i've played and we don't need to be fighting aliens to make something like that useful. if i see i a pretty big guy in a suit of amor and my bulletsbounce of his armor and he levels a chaingun[gauserifle] at me i'm dropping my weapons and running.

Course, on the real battlefield, such a suit would make use of cover tough and would immobilize you more than protect you. You'd also be an excellent target for HMG and RPG fire.

ok, this is just sortof a shot in the dark here, just sortof a 'four in the morning clear' thought, but dont you all have it wrong here?

everyone who is contradicting mechs, saying they could be taken out with tank/helicopter/rpg is right, but at this point its moot. we have established that a hundred foot tall mech WILL NOT WORK so pls stop posting about how disadvantagious (real word?) they are. thats over

if you had a mech, or a group of them, say three, about 15ft persay, are you going to MARTCH them out into a tank? has a anyone here heard of tactics? But seriously, if you had this theoretical group of mechs, your NOT going to send them against tanks. you wouldent send infantry against tanks, and mechs would essentaly be very big, very well armored, and very deadly infantry. there ARE huge tactical advantages to be had by a smaller mech, or a mech suit (samus // master cheif style), but more on that later.

another thing thats bothering me here. what kind of mechs exactly are we talking about? are we thinking of more gundam ish, very huminoid oversise robotic suits? or are we talking about mechwarior style tank-on-two-legs thing? the former could have some advantages in some instances, but the latter is utterly useles, why not just get a tank?

now, for the ways that if used TACTICALY a small to smallish mech (normal humansized robo suit to 20 ft tall at outside) would be imensiely usefull. ideal mech: small, mabie about 7-8 feet tall, works in small groups, can withstand smallarms fire, would let the pilot (if not neccicarly the mech) atleast survive an rpg, or 50cal rounds. give this mech a booster pack, sutch as would be usefull to make a jump longer/ higher and move faster. what you would want to do with these things is drop them out of a helicopter near to an enimy position, they could land from higher up with the aid of jumppacks, and then get them IN CLOSE with soldiers. if these things can withstand atleast smallarms fire, and amplify human strenght *would have to to move, i remind you* and have a close combat wepon in addition to a firearm, three these things could DESTROY a group of twenty soldiers group of soldiers in one go. in close range, with small arms fire not working, what are you going to do? blow up your comerades with an rpg or grenade? i dont think so. the crutial elements here would be geting them to MOVE FAST and withstand small arms fire. Also, i would say that these things would be realy usefull in an urban enviroment. for instance, if you belived that there were enimys in a particular building, ordinarliy you would send you soldiers in, where the others have the advantage of knowing the layout of the building, and knowing what paths could posobly be taken to get in. with this smaller 7 ft mech, you could break through a wall ( i suppose this could be done with a grenade also) go inside, quickly dispatch everything inside with minimal injury because no one expects to need an rpg inside a building, or have a 50cal placed facing inwards. simple as that. mech walks back out, gets picked up by helecopter, and goes back in its power cradle. oh and thats another thing: a group of small mechs could fit inside a helcpoter or specialy moddifyed troop transport, 'charge up' there, and would only NEED a batterly life of about four or five hours, if that, to be effective. the pilot could have infared, a gps, radar, and a HUD, all situated in the helmet, all activated by voice commands.

main obstacles that i can see are making these things move fast, and not sacrificing armor execively. with a smaller mech, the fast part is not so hard, the power issues are alredy out of the way, so these are realy the only problems left. the armor bit could be sloved, or at least helped by removable armor. have the main armor 'plates' be removable, and replaceable, depending on the situation, and a small armory, likewise interreplacable, all inside this transport, the same one with the power cradles. if you were likely to only run into lightly armored infantry, put on lighter armor, bring lighter wepons. you could also make them able to leach juce out of power outlits, if its an urban setting, incase of exended perious away from main carrier.

ha HA *mechs are so cool!*
PS: im sure there are lots of holes in this, and some of its probobly alredy covered, but some of its good, im sure.

Woulden't tanks like tatchikomas be more realistic/practical?
Tatchikoma
external image
Metal Gear Rex
external image
or this design on deviantart.com www.deviantart.com...

FOT,

>>
if you had a mech, or a group of them, say three, about 15ft persay, are you going to MARTCH them out into a tank? has a anyone here heard of tactics? But seriously, if you had this theoretical group of mechs, your NOT going to send them against tanks. you wouldent send infantry against tanks, and mechs would essentaly be very big, very well armored, and very deadly infantry. there ARE huge tactical advantages to be had by a smaller mech, or a mech suit (samus // master cheif style), but more on that later.
>>

Size = mass. Mass to support the mass. Plus more mass to cover the added vulnerability area of the mass. As a pure exercise in /weight/ this mass will add up to COST.

Infantry are used because they are essentially cheap to lose and numerous enough to either feel out a battlespace or lock it down so that nobody can move within it.

If you have a million dollar fighting suit, I figure that adds up to about 1/3rd of an IFV or 1/5th of an MBT. Or 16 trained men. From a purely accounting viewpoint, 12 trained men are easier and more flexible. Not least because a General can command men. A suit he cannot.

I also have a problem with a 15ft tall whatever. If it's unmanned, there is no reason to make it stand, bipedally, that tall (taller than an Abrahms at roughly 12ft). If it has a pilot/driver, you have to accound for HIS need to bend. Does he look out vision slots in the breast plate or stand in stirrups in the device's kneecaps or what?

>>
another thing thats bothering me here. what kind of mechs exactly are we talking about? are we thinking of more gundam ish, very huminoid oversise robotic suits? or are we talking about mechwarior style tank-on-two-legs thing? the former could have some advantages in some instances, but the latter is utterly useles, why not just get a tank?
>>

The problem is that you can 'scale' tanks as, if not MORE (existing automotive technology base is /huge/ and highly evolved) as readily as you can armored suits and the combination of wheels-a-turnin' and internal volumetrics (squat by wide) is much more reliable (fewer linear/reciprocal acuator/effectors and better weight distribution) and much easier to stuff with systems (cubic feet, plain and simple).

>>
Now, for the ways that if used TACTICALLY a small to smallish mech (normal humansized robo suit to 20 ft tall at outside) would be imensiely usefull. ideal mech: small, mabie about 7-8 feet tall, works in small groups, can withstand smallarms fire, would let the pilot (if not neccicarly the mech) atleast survive an rpg, or 50cal rounds. give this mech a booster pack, sutch as would be usefull to make a jump longer/ higher and move faster.
>>

The best way to survive an RPG is not to be shot at. The second best is to be too fast to be engaged by it. The third best is to shoot it down (Trophy, Arena etc.) the _very last modeal preference_ is to 'take the hit and live'.

Because it's often cheaper to be able to throw something away than it is to lug it's armored weight around.

This argues against human occupational mechs at all, IMO, because the ability to move (or even /transition/ to moving, from a prone or kneeling posture) rapidly through a given engagement zone is not inherent to the biped stance and the why /deliberately/ cripple yourself by putting a hollow inside the volume that armor must surround, thus compromising it's thickness beyond that necessary for any internal actuation systems?

Look at a T-800-101 and tell me how thee heck you plan on stuffing a human inside that?

If Mechs have any advantage at all over conventional vehicles it will be that they are lighter because they DO NOT have a human inside. And perhaps can be compacted tighter or stood more vertically to facilitate dense packing (Battledroid sequence from 'TPM').

>>
What you would want to do with these things is drop them out of a helicopter near to an enimy position, they could land from higher up with the aid of jumppacks, and then get them IN CLOSE with soldiers.
>>

Why? If I _know_ soldiers are present, I'm going to drop a bomb or artillery round on their heads. The best way to figure this out is with building penetrating microwave sensors or a tiny little Tamiya RC-like throwaway.

NEVER come to where the enemy is. Because he sure as heck knows his own location better than you do and may well have prepped the area /before/ you detected him, so as to create an ambush.

Maneuver to Target NOT Engage is one of the key laws of Firepower.

>>
If these things can withstand at least smallarms fire, and amplify human strenght *would have to to move, i remind you* and have a close combat wepon in addition to a firearm, three these things could DESTROY a group of twenty soldiers group of soldiers in one go.
>>

I think you're hung up on a Predator/Ninja/Jedi mode of thinking. Never send a Marine where a bullet can go better. Never spend more on the bullet than the aperture you target-smartly with it.

>>
In close range, with small arms fire not working, what are you going to do? blow up your comerades with an rpg or grenade?
>>

A typical soldier is going to have between 8 and 12 magazines on him for a patrol, maybe more if it's a LRRP type long boonie walk. Depending on the nature of the fight, he is going to either expend all of 1-2 mags on a bunch of targets that HE ambushes. Or every round he has instant-onset suppressing an enemy that has done the same to him.

THE KEY is to _maximize the conditions_ by which:

A. You make sure you're a proactive shooter (see first, kill first or /avoid/ as a decisionial variable).

B. You have ENOUGH shooters so that (in a spread out patrol line) any initial attrition is not overwhelming and you ALL are shooting 'to the last man'.

8X30 = 240 rounds. 10X240 = 2,400 rounds. Where the definition of infantry as point-fire shooters is that they can ALL target individual as much as clustered aimpoints by clock bearing and highlow (preassigned) target fields.

And then shift to reengage a fresh one.

It is actually quite hard to match them for numbers of aimed-targets per minute engaged.

Now an MG can lay down a LINEAR fire as a 'beaten ground' type system whereby you all occupy a narrow arc or zone of attack and are taken down like wheat before the scyth. But it is not aimed so much as saturative which means that if you have one-or-a-few shooters, all with heavy weapons, you will have a very difficult time matching both the sustained (bullets carried) fires and the ability to rapidly engage several point threats, simultaneously.

Remember, for every measure there is a counter. And if you are into killing millioni-dollar fighting suits, so too can the countermeasure performance:cost leveraging increase (because there are likely fewer mecha than grunts).

As the basics of 'don't hit a rhino with a ball peen hammer'' suggest Landmine, LAW and SPR as the likely engagement methods of choice, let's see what we can do to improve their performance.

One idea that immediate springs to mind is an EFP/SFF system via a tuned Hornet or similar (WAAM) type skeet flinger. The round goes up, it sees the target, it points a self forging fragment at it, and from as much as 100-150 yds away, you put a 9,000fps slug through the 'helmet' of the monster.

Go robot vs. robot. Placing a very large caliber (50-80lbs) rocket weapon (100mm?) or heavy antitank rifle (50mm?) on a remote firing post or vehicle. If a bigger bang is what it takes and you KNOW you can no longer stand up to the 'man himself', there is no reason to hump the weight or stick around to point the kill-mechanism, manually.

Especially in 4GW, the essence of infantry tactics is that they are so cheap and easy to whack that the enemy /thinks/ he can do so and get away with it. Often, he does. Sometimes, he gets careless or lazy and is run down by the surviving friends. Sometimes, it's a trap and by shooting dumb-ugly-1 he is in fact setting himself up to take a smart bomb or a FFAR to the forehead in his revealed fighting position.

If the threat is so intimidating that there is no chance of a 'got yer scalp!' psychologic reward, _the threat will not engage_.

In any case, remember, SCALING. If a (lucky) RPG can kill a tank, it will always be a threat to something smaller 'but still too large' to avoid detection or dodge the kill effect.

>>
I dont think so. The crucial elements here would be geting them to MOVE FAST and withstand small arms fire. Also, i would say that these things would be realy usefull in an urban enviroment. for instance, if you belived that there were enimys in a particular building, ordinarliy you would send you soldiers in, where the others have the advantage of knowing the layout of the building, and knowing what paths could posobly be taken to get in. with this smaller 7 ft mech, you could break through a wall ( i suppose this could be done with a grenade also) go inside, quickly dispatch everything inside with minimal injury because no one expects to need an rpg inside a building, or have a 50cal placed facing inwards.
>>

You take buildings, from the smallest to the largest, _top down_. So that the rats have a place to flush too and so that the natively 2D thinking of the average muzzle mutt doesn't get him a bullet to the crown of his skull. This scenario has actually played out in Fallujah and two men ended up being badly hurt because they went too deep, too fast without clearing the bloody rooftop.

What ended up being done was the entire building blown apart by a tank. While this may sound 'excessive' it actually tends to /save/ lives and property because if you want scarey, you talk the overpressure/blast effects of a HEAT round blowing up inside a contained volume. And again, the rats flee.

OTOH if, for whatever (foolish) reason you cannot get full-court-pressish with your engaged opfor, it is STILL CHEAPER to send in a SMALL robot with a 9mm and a selfdestruct charge (also bomb detection sniffers) to first find and fix the threat. And then use gas or smoke to wheedle him out.


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Simple as that. mech walks back out, gets picked up by helecopter, and goes back in its power cradle.
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The problem with using tanks as infantry support weapons is, as I have said, that they opfor will evaporate if they are at all wise. OTOH, the problem with using infantry as tank support weapons is that, sure, they can sweep a fairly large city, one street at a time.

But they will take /enormous/ casualties. And the very slowness of their rate of advance is such that they also tend to put the AFV at equal risk.

What a tank does best is to create gaps through which conventional forces can break out. Or to range-deep to CUT OFF whatever enemy is dislodged by that action.

i.e. Rather than use your highly costly robot as a one-course-horse in competition with systems that do that job just as well; you need to create an employment scenario where it does either a bunch of things. Or ONE THING better/cheaper/quicker than any other platform can be cross-missioned to achieve.

IMO, the place for a robot is equivalent to that of a hunting cat breaking /past/ the forward lines of support. And then killing whatever tries to run by in rout.

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Oh and thats another thing: a group of small mechs could fit inside a helicopter or specially modified troop transport, 'charge up' there, and would only NEED a batterly life of about four or five hours, if that, to be effective. the pilot could have infared, a gps, radar, and a HUD, all situated in the helmet, all activated by voice commands.
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I think you underestimate the amount of juice it would take to power a fully armored, manned, fighting suit. Though I admit I have no idea as to how many many watts we're talking about (I recall an all-electric demo in which a converted car running on banks of laptop lithium-ion batteries which outran a corvette in the 1/4 mile, only to have to be recharged), it would not surprise me if it didn't need more than a conventional car does. Probably by a factor of 3-4. Imagine hauling around 4 car batteries worth of weight /just in and of themselves/.

No. It's better to go with a fuel cell or small rotary generator (constant speed=very high efficiency) and a _low_ capacitance battery system, IMO. Because weight:weight the liquid fuel will be lighter and it will /run/ (albeit at greatly reduced performance), even if the battery is taken out of the loop.

The only question is whether you are able to muffle the system sufficiently to work without compromising the operational profile of the vehicle.

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main obstacles that i can see are making these things move fast, and not sacrificing armor execively. with a smaller mech, the fast part is not so hard, the power issues are alredy out of the way, so these are realy the only problems left. the armor bit could be sloved, or at least helped by removable armor. have the main armor 'plates' be removable, and replaceable, depending on the situation, and a small armory, likewise interreplacable, all inside this transport, the same one with the power cradles. if you were likely to only run into lightly armored infantry, put on lighter armor, bring lighter wepons. you could also make them able to leach juce out of power outlits, if its an urban setting, incase of exended perious away from main carrier.
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No. Unlike a wheeled chassis which will always have a given strength margin inherent to it's frame and wheel supports that is almost always vastly greater than the official payload margin (to accept the lumps and bumps of travel on an irregular terrain matrix), anything on legs has to be sized to carry the weight that is there /all the time/. Because it is it's own loadbearing AND locomotive source.

So leaving the armor off doesn't improve it's lift-leg-/thrust!/ electromechanical efficiency much if the structural capability to bear the weight is still inherent to it's chassis.

There will also be some severe balance and (axial) acceleration issues which means that whatever gyro system and hydraulic or electrical or fiber 'muscle' system must also be tuned to generate adequate responses in-range for the mobility @ weight you are going to be using most often.

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ha HA *mechs are so cool!*
PS: im sure there are lots of holes in this, and some of its probobly alredy covered, but some of its good, im sure.
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It's not that they aren't cool. It's that they are already among us in far simpler forms, with wheels. Mecha as a class need to be considered, not as anthropomorphic expressions of our identity as a function of 'what can we do to stay relevant on the battlefield'. Rather they need to be seen in the light of 'what NEEDS doing that neither man nor existing vehicles can continue to achieve without near-random if not overwhelming attrition'.

One area that comes to mind, particularly if you are not going to make your own doors, elevators and 5.56 pincushions through every wall in a building, is simply the ability to climb stairs. To turn a doorknob. To press a button. Or climb a wall if not rope.

These acts which WE DO because /we live/ (in the places that posess such features) and which conventional machines cannot, are inherently dangerous because they are either signature actions which can be sabotaged in their execution. Or require transit of key chokes which are predictable.

And yet, to replace the human hand (cue 'The Addam's Family' theme) or the human foot DOES NOT require an anthropomorphic equivalent form. Nor one which weighs, at a minimum, several hundred pounds.

It simply requires something which does not lose traction or overtip on a regular slope. And which can extend a prehensile actuator that -may or may not- look like a finger/thumb combination.

And which, perhaps most importantly, is light enough to be carried until needed to scramble ahead of an infantry team with more ease than existing packbot technology.

It might be a spider. It might be a cat. But in replacing US /rather than/ compete with an armored golfcart (as the best solution to your suggestion) it has to do the same or similar job for _less value_ that it can be carried and expended at the same rate for which humans would take similar casualties navigating a similar hazard.

Keep that in mind. COST as not only an independent variable but a principle one (top three of 10 say). And then go back to the drawing board and try-try again.


KPl.

I was searching for information on Mechs, found this forum and read its entirety. Sounds like ch1466 knows what they are talking about and to go along with what she is saying here is some footage of something resembling an early model of her Killer robo Kitty.

video.google.com...

read about it in Pop Sci mag. It read that it is being designed to carry ammo and other gear for soldiers to ease the load on them. From th vid you can see it is being tested in different terrains though be it the driveway after rain and snow. Future mods could be a better skeletal system to allow for more flexibility thus more speed, better legs, miniturization of the equipment used to run it, a head with cameras for a more 3D viewing scope, a more round body for aerodynamics and bullet deflection, posibly some type of Metal Storm weaponry with an auto loading system (I suggest them for noise reduction), possibly a body frame made from APnano's Titanium disulfide TiS2 armor
www.isracast.com...
in the form of either a feline or canine to match the current form, broader feet for traction and stability with some pneumatic retractable claws of the same TiS2 form better climbing, some tracking systems and your robo Kitty/dog is ready to hunt. Perhaps a tail for balance with a tranquilizing barb in its end.

I spotted the sniper in 1 second, seriously. The large clump of green gives it away too much. And the shape of it does not look like a bush.

In my opinion we would never have mechs, all of this will evolve into flying vehicles.

In my opinion we would never have mechs, all of this will evolve into flying vehicles.

Please refrain from building an opinion on what you have seen in video games. It doesnt add to the discussion. The "BelowTopSecret" section is for this kind of talk.




All of it has been done before

Im going to throw in my two cents here as I am in the robotics field.

So, we've covered all the different versions I see... we have full scale mechs, the shorter walkers, the bear suit style, multi-legged tanks, and of course that which resembles elementals.

1 ) Okay, to begin we shal start with the largest, the full scale mechs.
These are massive and damned heavy machines. With one hell of a power supply, they may be able to be mobile enough to get around... with todays power supplies (gasoline engines, turbine engines, etc) not a chance, theres simply too much weight to expect todays technology to move it fast enough to keep up with even a foot soldier.
Along these lines, larger units of this classification have what all units with bipedal systems for movement have... a huge problem, balance. Sure we can program in all the balacing movements we want to keep it standing under normal conditions, but when hit with a shell, or a missile, it would get toppled.
Now picture 90 tonnes of steel falling over, all of it intricately welded and bolted together... do you really think it's going to survive it's trip to the ground?
To put it in perspective, I have seen automobiles fall off of their floor jacks, a mere meter up and completley, and I do mean completley disintegrate. Engine pieces all over the place, body parts bouncing around, etc, th frame, completley bent.
Now, it's not just weapons that would be able to drop these things, you trip it's foot up and it's down.
90 tonnes of steel moving at, say, 20 Mph. No ammount of balacing, or gyro action is going to stop that 90 tonnes from stopping, but it would be pretty easy to stop it's foot. The resulting action, yep, 90 tonnes of steel tripping forward at 20Mph. Not a pretty sight.

2) The shorter elemental to walker (2142 reference) size.
These would weigh in at anywhere from 5 tonnes to 50. Basically a pipedal tank. Yes, you can envision chaincannons on it if you want, I love them too.
The whole point to building something of this size is to replace tanks, and other armored vehicles of it's size.
The one fundamental rule of engagement you really want to obey ( Aside from the part about actually shooting back) is to reduce your profile size so you are harder to hit.These machines go against that very rule. And, they too suffer the same flaw as the larger units, they can be tripped easily. However, if tripped, your flight to the ground will be a little more survivable... but nevertheless, standing back up again would be a task in of itself... if your machine survived at all.
Tanks cannot be replaced by these, tanks will however, be replaced by smarter weapons, the same way battleships were useless once missiles became smarter.

3 ) The grizzly suit. Ah yes, unpowered, not really that heavy, and able to do what the soldier inside can... with one problem... good luck getting it through doors.
Suits of this type are great for open field combat, where your shots can come from anywhere, and it's best to be protected from all sides... but let's face it, field fighting rarely occurs anymore, most of todays battles are urban battles, and would take place in buildings and streets. Somewhere you really don't want to try to get through in a grizzly suit, especially seeing as your journey of figuring out how to get through that living room is just the time your enemy needs to figure out how to destroy that suit of yours.
Simply put, you just arent mobile enough. You need to be able to get in, get out, and get on with the next mission.
Grizzly suits would play a support role, and nothing more.

4 ) The walking tank.
Sure, I've seen a catepillar construction vehicle being walked around using it's support struts... it's very feasable to have heavy machinery walk around on four legs. But not for warfare. Why? Because walking units, especially with four legs, simply wouldnt be able to keep up with a tracked or wheeled craft.
Turning would also be quite the task aswell, unless you position the legs so turning isnt necessary (IE, all directions can be used as forward).
Something of this sort may play a good role of scaring the crap out of your enemy, but not once they realise that all they have to do is knock off one of the legs and your done for.


Unfortunatley ladies and gentlemen, walking units are simply no comparison to the technology we already have today. That is, not until our technology undergoes some serious advancements in lighter armor, lighter but stronger servo's, and much more powerful power sources (engines etc.).


One advancement I would love to see would be true hovering technology. Not the kind we have today that requires a cushion of air, but a field effect buffer between the craft and the ground. Like a repulsion between magnets.
That would have HUGE implications for mobile armor units. Unless of course the power required is simply too much... then wer'e back to square one.


Robots, (without people inside) dont have to worry about alot of armor, or even staying safe. If it gets wasted, let it get wasted, we can build more. Unmanned vehicles are the future of warfare. Manned ones require too much pampering what with the armor and seats, and cabin space to be effective.


So thats my two cents. Sorry to rain on your parade.

Good general assessment, Johnsky.

But you missed one form of "mobile suite".

The "powered armour" concept.
Basicly, combine the Urza Bearsuite with magneto/eletro/chemo-strictive substances (in-organic "muscles" that contract under stimulus) to create a suit that is man sized yet articulated by better-than-human actuators.

I personally believe this is the most likely technology to become effective in the future.

The actuators being researched now all focus on very little energy in-put with powerful results (our own muscles prove that it must be possible). This would reduce the requirements for a large power supply drastically.

Balance would largely be covered by the human operator. Us humans with our amazing wet-ware based uber-processors can still kick the crap outta any computer when it comes to balance/reaction programming. Yes, you would still be fairly clutzy in these things... but grunts would train long and hard to get the most effective use out of them. Reactions, movements, and tactics would all be developed and made possible by our amazing capacity to adapt.

Power Suits would have a very low profile. Picking something that small up on radar would be practically impossible. Thermal paste and routed temperature control could be used to break up IR signauters to make them even harder to detect.

Power Suits could mount some very impressive weapons system. From missiles, to heavy .50+ cal rifles, to large capacity chain-guns. There's a lot of very nasty infantry weapons out there now. These could be adapted, made bigger and badder, and used to a hell of an effect when mounted on a Powersuit.

The Urza suit has proven that heavy armour can drastically improve survivability. The next step is to use robotics to improve it's mobility. With some of the tech that's being worked on now, I could see it being feasible that Powersuits could (one day) become a very potent component of the battlefield.

You can't make one for the same reson a bug can't be huge. Its a ratio, since something is bigger it needs a bigger engine or power supply. Thats ok. The problem is it would work small skale but on a big scale the stresses get biger but the metel isn't stronger so it snaps. Theres also cost and fuel but that is the structurel reason it won't work.

I wish it would work that would be cool

[edit on 22-12-2006 by ghost00]